During the past three decades, videogames have evolved tremendously and have become widely played by people of all ages and abilities. Additionally, recent years have been marked by an explosion in the use of mobile electronic devices, such as smart phones, tablet computers, portable gaming devices and the like. Correspondingly, the popularity of playing videogames on mobile electronic devices has also exploded.
Also in recent years, several prior art videogames, known as endless running games, have become extremely popular. In endless running games, a player begins the game with a certain amount of resources for playing the game, and the game runs until the player exhausts all his or her resources; during the game, the player may increase resource levels through various game play events. Traditionally, these increased resources are earned from within the videogame, for example, by accumulating a certain number of points resulting from videogame play. Thus, the increased resources have been accumulated fully within a virtual environment.
Likewise, several prior art videogames involving battles between characters have also become extremely popular. Many of these videogame battles run on the type of resources discussed above, with these resources accumulated fully within the virtual environment. Additionally, physical board games involving battles have been popular and remain popular. For example, the Beyblade™ brand battling top has been popular for several years and remains popular. The battles between these types of tops have occurred fully within the real environment.
Over the past few decades, systems, devices and methods also have used physical activity measurements as input to computer-related systems, mainly to promote physical activity or particular products. U.S. Pat. No. 8,353,770 to Lu for “Mobile Social Fitness Networked Game” discloses a mobile device where performance data is used for fitness, socialization and potential game playing. Patent application US 2005/0227811 to Shum for “Game Pod” discloses a game pod attachable to footwear that measures physical activity and uses the measurements as input to a videogame. U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,622 to Shum for “Interactive Use an Athletic Performance Monitoring and Reward Method, System and Computer Program Product” discloses a method for rewarding athletic performance involving the use of a product worn by a person. U.S. Pat. No. 6,213,872 to Harada, et al. for “Pedometer with Game Mode” discloses a pedometer with a game mode for a child.
Various sports balls, pucks and the like are known which may contain an electromagnetic transmitter. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,976,038 to Orenstein et al. for “Apparatus for detecting moving ball” issued Nov. 2, 1999 discloses an apparatus having a game ball containing a transmitter where antennas are provided for determining whether or not the game ball has passed over a line. Orenstein et al. allows for limited user interaction with illuminating sensors that increase the interactive capabilities of the game. Similarly, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,846 to Craig for “Hockey Goal—‘The Judge’” issued Sep. 7, 1999 describes a hockey apparatus where sensors detect whether a puck has passed over a housing line. Like Orenstein et al., the Craig patent allows for some user interaction by way of reaction to a puck crossing the line as real-world physical play activities. U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,333 to O'Heir for “Foot Force Actuated Computer Input Apparatus and Method” discloses using shoes, pads, or other similar device to generate control signals corresponding to movement. U.S. Pat. No. 6,024,675 to Kashiwaguchi for “Data-Using Game System” discloses using operational training data produced from a device such as an exercise machine as input for a videogame that is part of the exercise machine.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2013/0017891 A1 to Romero, et al. for “Systems And Methods For Providing Virtual Incentives For Real-World Activities” published Jan. 17, 2013 discloses toys and physical play objects such as sports balls or flying disks that include a sensor to generate signals conveying information regarding the amount of real-world physical play activities performed with the associated object. Romero discloses that once the amount of play crosses a threshold level, its user may be presented with a code, from which the user may redeem virtual benefits and incentives for use in virtual-world videogame environments such that real-world physical activity is encouraged through virtual space benefits.
Because the play of videogames has largely been fueled with battle victories, energy, or points, earned or otherwise accumulated from within the virtual environment of the played game, the enjoyment of the game has been limited. Likewise, because battling games in the physical, real environment have remained fully within the physical, real environment, the enjoyment of those games has also been limited. It would be advantageous to enhance the enjoyment of videogames and real world physical games by providing a battling game that involves a single character persona alternating between the real world environment and the virtual environment during a single battle as well as through multiple battles while providing feedback to the player from each environment. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a battling game that involves a single character alternating between battle in the real world environment and battle in a virtual environment. This can be accomplished by producing a physical game piece capable of communicating with and being identified by an application on an electronic device, where the application on the electronic device alternates between battles in the virtual environment and waiting for the virtual character to return following a battle between physical game pieces. The inventions discussed in connection with the described embodiments address these and other deficiencies of the prior art.
The features and advantages of the present inventions will be explained in or apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment considered together with the accompanying drawings.